On the site of a fire in the library of the Academic Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences.(RIA Novosti / Vladimir Astapkovich) / RIA Novosti

The massive fire in Russia’s leading academic library may have destroyed some 15 percent of the collection – or roughly two million unique, historic documents. The devastation “resembles Chernobyl,” say academics hoping to save some of the ancient texts.

The blaze – which
erupted at around 10 p.m. Moscow time on Friday (7 p.m. GMT), on
the third floor of the Academic Institute of Scientific
Information on Social Sciences (INION) in Moscow – was fully
extinguished at 11:24 p.m. on Saturday, according to the
Emergencies Ministry. Firefighters will continue to pour water
over some 2,000 square meters of the damaged building until
Sunday morning.

The smoking debris of the library “resembles Chernobyl,”
said the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Vladimir
Fortov, after he inspected the scene on Nakhimovsky Prospect
along with INION director Yury Pivovarov.

“This is a great loss for science. It is the world’s largest
depository of this kind, similar, probably, to the Library of
Congress. Here we have the materials which cannot be found
elsewhere, and all humanitarian institutions used this
library,” Fortov said, as quoted by TASS.

Earlier, the head of RAS estimated that the fire might have
affected 15 percent of the library collection, or roughly two
million books and texts.

The director of INION
called the incident a“tragedy,”as only a small part of the material
had digital copies. Luckily, most of the books are stored in the
basement and on the first floor of the building – and since the
fire started on the third floor, firefighters managed to contain
it before the blaze reached the storerooms.

Many of the texts were still damaged by the water, but Pivovarov
says there is a good chance they can be saved.

“After the water damage, thanks to modern technology, it is
possible to save the books. But after the fire...We cannot turn
ashes back into paper,” said the academician. Pivovarov
added that the international scientific community has already
voiced its desire to help.

“The library will need
more than just a restoration, it needs complete
reconstruction,”he
said, noting that he hopes the government will aid in the effort
to save books and rebuild the library, which he estimates will
take years.

The press secretary of the Federal Agency of Scientific
Organizations, Maria Dokuchaeva, told Interfax that once the area
is cleared, INION management will examine the full extent of the
damage caused by the massive fire and the efforts to contain it.

The last inspection of the INION library in March found seven
violations, according to the Moscow branch of the Emergencies
Ministry. The library was fined 70,000 rubles (US$2,200) and
given until January 30, 2015 to fix the violations. The fire
ironically erupted exactly on that deadline.

With 49,000 readers and 330 employees, INION is the largest
research center in Russia in the fields of social sciences and
humanities. Its collection consists of 14.2 million texts in both
ancient and modern European and Asian languages, including rare
400-year-old editions. It also has one of the biggest collections
of Slavic language books in the country.

The library, founded in 1918, also boasts Russia's most complete
collection of documents of the League of Nations, the UN, and
UNESCO, as well as parliamentarian reports of the United States
(since 1789), the UK (since 1803), Italy (since 1897), and many
others.